Ohio Police Rescue Man from Burning Pickup

Updated at 9:33 am, March 28th, 2013

Thinkstock/Getty Images(EUCLID, Ohio) — Three Ohio police officers are being hailed as heroes after pulling a man from a burning truck.

In newly released video, the three officers from the Euclid Police Department can be seen responding to a vehicle covered in flames and smoke with the driver trapped inside.

“I immediately grabbed my fire extinguisher out of the trunk and ran to the car,” Officer Adam Beese said. “I smashed the passenger window to ventilate the car because the cabin was completely filled with smoke and then tried to knock down the flames with the fire extinguisher.”

Beese and his fellow officers, Jose Alcantara and Corey Screngi, were the first to respond to the scene of the accident Saturday morning after receiving a 911 call that a pickup truck had crashed.

Finding themselves at the scene before firefighters, one of the officers smashed the back of the truck’s window with a baton while another cut the seat belt of the driver who was conscious but unresponsive.

In the video, captured by an on-body recording system worn by Beese, you can see the officers drag the man to safety.

“I wouldn’t consider myself a hero,” Alcantara said. “It’s our job and I’m sure that any of us or anywhere would do the same to save a person’s life, regardless of the situation.”

The man, 38, was later arrested for intoxication, according to police.

“It’s one of those things you don’t think about it when you are doing it,” Screngi said. “But you sit back and go, ‘Wow, that could have been a lot worse or gone a different way.’”